Gobekli Tepe tour eastern turkey “The World’s First Temple”

EasternTurkeyTours Gobekli Tepe “The World’s First Temple” Tel: (UK Office) +44 0560 285 8907 Tel: (Turkish Office) +90 432 215 20 92 ix miles from Urfa, an ancient city in south-eastern Turkey, Klaus Schmidt is uncovering one of the most startling archaeological discoveries of our time; massive carved stones about 12,000 years old, crafted and arranged by prehistoric people who had not yet developed writing, metal tools or even pottery The megaliths predate Stonehenge in Great Britain by some 6,000 years The place is called Göbekli Tepe or in Kurdish, Girê Navokê, and Dr Schmidt is convinced it’s the site of the world’s oldest temple What was so important to these early people that they gathered to build (and ultimately conceal) these stone enclosures? The megaliths within the enclosures were placed here by people 6,000 years or more before the invention of writing Particular attention was paid to the excavations at Göbekli Tepe after the publication of the book "They built the first temple - the mysterious sanctuary of Stone Age hunters.” It was realised that these were the remnants of the oldest purpose S built cultural/religious structure in the world yet to be discovered, and on the broad evidence found here we see the beginning of the human story in a context to which we can all relate Discovered by a solitary Kurdish shepherd, Savak Yildiz, in 1994, Göbekli Tepe is one of the greatest archaeological discoveries in the last 50 years Others would say one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of all time: a site that has revolutionised the way we look at human history, the origins of religion and faith The most important fact is the staggering age of the remains Carbon-dating shows that the complex is at least 12,000 years old, maybe even 13,000 years old That means it was built around 10,000BC By comparison, Stonehenge was built in 3,000 BC and the pyramids of Giza in 2,500 BC Göbekli Tepe is thus the oldest such site in the world yet to be discovered, and by a significant margin It is so old that it probably predates settled human life Its initial construction period is referred to as Pre Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) meaning that it is pre-pottery and pre-writing; Göbekli Tepe hails from a part of human history that is unimaginably distant and at the end of the last Ice Age Most importantly, this is in all likelihood a religious or cult site, not a settlement site; there is no evidence of anyone having lived here It would also seem to be associated with the cycles of life and death, a theme we shall return to several times The construction was a huge effort, and Dr Schmidt believes that hundreds of people came from far and wide for specific cultural or religious rituals over an extended period of time, and then went back to their territories and their daily lives The site was only used for very important events; perhaps rituals associated with birth and death, the changing of the seasons or to mark the migratory patterns of wildlife While no burial evidence has been found Dr Schmidt says these could be behind the walls; “we must be patient to answer these questions and only excavate what we need.” One possible use for the site may be the practice of sky burials or excarnations As an interesting aside, excarnation is a funeral practice of the Zoroastrian faith originating in nearby Iran in which bodies are exposed to the elements and to scavenging birds like vultures, kites and crows in stone structures called “Towers of Silence”; this practice still continues in parts of India However, the problem with uncovering sites like this is that the very process of excavation actually destroys the site The goal therefore, is to protect the site as much as possible while learning as much as one can Consequently, the process is going to take a very long time and is as far removed from the buccaneering style of archaeology espoused by early archaeologists such as Schliemann in his excavations at Troy and made popular by the Indiana Jones films as it is possible to be How they give the site a cultural and historical context? With no pottery and no writing there can be no indication of how these ancient people perceived themselves The team had to compare archaeological sites, taking materials from Göbekli Tepe and other sites which are related by archaeology and which can be carbon dated and compare these findings The practice of site burial also gives an indication of age and suggests a cultural context that is replicated in other parts of the Fertile Crescent area Göbekli Tepe was in use, in its various phases, for a period of about 2000 – 2500 years To give this some perspective, only 2000 years have elapsed since the birth of Christ Because it is so ancient and so unexpected, Göbekli Tepe has been, and remains in many respects, an enigma to archaeology Consisting of a series of stone circles (and some rectangles) containing T-shaped pillars bearing exquisite carvings of animals, birds, insects and abstract human figures, this ritual complex was constructed at the end of the last Ice Age by unknown individuals, who rose far beyond the conventional understanding of the hunter-gatherers who occupied the Eurasian continent at this time Many of the “T” shaped stones which stand within the stone walled circles are clearly representations of human figures Experts believe that the stones were moved, the same way that the Egyptians moved stones to build the pyramids; manpower, levers, ropes and wooden beams and rollers öbekli Tepe sits at the northern edge of the Fertile Crescent – an arc of mild climate and arable land from the Persian Gulf to present-day Lebanon, Israel, Jordan and Egypt – and would have attracted hunter-gatherers from Africa and Levant Dr Schmidt has found no evidence that people permanently resided on the summit of Göbekli Tepe itself Neolithic communities rarely established domestic environments on hill tops, preferring valleys or possibly caves and other sheltered spots nearer to supplies of water; he believes that this was a place of worship on an unprecedented scale – humanity’s first “cathedral on a hill.” Göbekli Tepe means “Belly Button Hill” or “Hill of the Navel.” The reference to the navel is frequent amongst ancient peoples in the naming of places that are central to their world view or to the importance of life, death and renewal For example, the natives of Easter Island in the Pacific, and on the other side of the world, referred to their island as Te Pito O Te Henua- the Navel of the World; in other words, a source of life and an intimate connection with a “Great Mother.” Is the name Göbekli Tepe, a modern Turkish name, an echoe of a distant and ancient cultural memory? G n what must be one of the great ironies, Göbekli Tepe was first examined (and dismissed) by University of Chicago and I Istanbul academics in the 1960s As part of a sweeping survey of the region, they visited the hill, saw some broken slabs of limestone and assumed the mound was nothing more than an abandoned medieval cemetery In 1994, Dr Schmidt was working on his own survey of prehistoric sites in the region After reading a brief mention of the stonelittered hilltop in the university of Chicago researchers’ report, he decided to go there for himself From the first moment after his arrival, he knew the place was extraordinary and that if he didn’t leave then, as he later said, he would be there for the rest of his life A year later he returned with five colleagues and they uncovered the first megaliths, a few buried so close to the surface they were scarred by ploughs As the archaeologists dug deeper, they unearthed pillars arranged in circles They found no signs of a settlement; no cooking hearths, houses or domestic rubbish pits, and none of the clay fertility figurines that litter nearby sites of about the same age The archaeologists did find evidence of tool use, including stone hammers and blades Even without metal chisels or hammers, prehistoric masons wielding flint tools would have chipped away at softer limestone outcrops, shaping them into pillars on the spot before carrying them a few hundred yards to the summit and lifting them upright The entire hill and its surrounding area is littered with the remnants of these ancient tools oris Peters, an archaeozoologist from the Ledwig Maximilian University in Munich, specialises in the analysis of animal remains Since 1998, he has examined hundreds of thousands of bone fragments from Göbekli Tepe area Peters has found cut marks and splintered edges on them, signs that the animals from which they came were butchered and cooked He has identified tens of thousands of gazelle bones, which make up more than 50% of the identifiable total, plus those of other wild game such as boar, sheep and red deer Also present in large numbers are the remains of Aurochs, a very large, aggressive and now extinct breed of oxen once common across the near east and Europe He also found bones of a dozen different bird species, including vultures, cranes, ducks and geese These bones indicate that the people who lived here had not yet domesticated animals or farmed land in a systematic manner These, of course, are the creatures we see carved on many of the stele at Göbekli Tepe It is interesting to note that the animalistic and mystical themes represented at Göbekli Tepe are progressions not so far removed from the extraordinary cave paintings left by man in other regions and from much earlier times Fragmentary human bones were also found in the mix offering a tantalising hint at what may have gone on here J Dr Schmidt says that the monuments could not have been built by “ragged bands of hunter-gatherers.” To carve, erect and bury rings of seven-ton stone pillars would have required hundreds of workers, all needing to be fed and housed, hence the eventual emergence of more settled communities in the area around 10,000 years ago Stanford University archaeologist Ian Hodder says “This shows social cultural changes come first, agriculture comes later” Another important requirement would have been a life and economy that was bountiful enough to provide the leisure time for people to contribute the time and resources for such a construction over such a long period of time Clearly the site represents the cusp between nomadic hunter gatherer life and settled life, although there has never been a clear break; nomadic and semi nomadic lifestyles still exist today, for example, in spite of the growing urbanisation of this region Similarly, hunter gatherer and settled lifestyles must have co-existed and possibly competed for many generations The use of the site covered both PPN periods A and B when there were marked changes in economy, social structures and lifestyles; these changes are reflected in the structures on site If you look at Göbekli Tepe as part of an arc of peoples from Iraq through Syria/Southern Turkey and down through Jordan and Israel you will notice that it was a common practice to literally bury old houses when building a new one It was also not uncommon to use old and abandoned dwellings as burial sites Göbekli Tepe's buried temples give rise to a misunderstanding If this social and cultural pattern were re-enacted at Göbekli Tepe then this would explain the burial of site buildings and the destruction, or ritual breaking, of pillars and sculptured objects that appears to have been the case The result would have been what was actually a small working complex since, as time passed, the bulk of it would have been buried under mounds which of course would have added to the mystery of the site for those who came here The life of site was experiencing a cycle of construction/ redundancy/burial/ reconstruction that paralleled the lives of the people over thousands of years What these cycles were and how they were determined can only be guessed at but it is clear that it all occurs within a pattern that could have been motivated by life cycles, calendar cycles or even clan or tribe politics We are seeing it exposed in a very short period of time and this gives a somewhat distorted view of the site's time line of construction and use The real curiosity about the site is that as time passed the quality and sophistication of the work declined Possibly, these hunter gathers had more time to devote, on a seasonal basis than more settled agricultural communities who, with few exceptions, have much harder lives, often poorer diets and certainly less time The very first grains to be cultivated can be traced back to a range of hills about sixty kilometres away and one should not forget that even semi nomadic peoples would sow wild and semi wild grains to be harvested at a later time Transition was gradual and patchy and this seems to be reflected in the decline of Göbekli Tepe Certainly the changes in shape of the structures are matched by the changes in traditional dwelling construction that marked the transition from PPNA to PPNB One question posed by many of those who read about Göbekli Tepe is simply related to the how rather than the why Without written accounts it is impossible to be sure of the why; we can speculate and indeed, there has been a great deal of speculation, much of it of a “mystical” nature The “how” is a rather more straightforward matter Gobekli Tepe comes from a period that is referred to in common parlance as the “Stone Age” This is a term we are much more familiar and happier with After all, we see Stone Age remains around us and they are a part of popular culture - think of Stonehenge in Wiltshire It might help therefore, to make some comparisons Göbekli Tepe is far older than anything else to date but there are only so many ways in which one can sensibly and intelligently work with stone and as the popular terminology suggests, these were people who were good with stone There are many examples: Seen below Map details are not important here; basic design and layout are There are obvious similarities due to the limitations placed on construction by the raw material Specifics of design are far more cultural in nature although this too can generate themes and stylistic similarities across regions and times Clearly this is a most astounding place, a place of worship, built when the surrounding countryside was lush and fertile Only - 6% of the site has been excavated so far, and radar scans show that that there are at least a further 20 such structures under the soil Some of the huge monoliths weigh as much as 50 tons each, showing carved reliefs of animals and figures many of which are extraordinarily sophisticated, even “modern” in appearance Some designs are highly stylised while others are far more representational Some may be simple representations of animals; others may represent scenes of the hunt or of animal life Cgantiija Temples, Malta Scara Brae, Orkney Islands Scotland 3200BC Gobekli Tepe 10,000 BC 3500BC odern fox in typical mid leap as depicted on stele at Gobekli Tepe with its prey (a small rodent?) marked by an arrow This stele is simply the depiction of fox hunting and given the location of the image and the work involved one might suspect that this stele identifies a clan or tribe by a fox totem or by what they may have believed to be shared characteristics Interestingly, although foxes feature in the mythical and religious spectrum in south west Asia, they are almost entirely absent in the near east Foxes however are prolific and adaptable creatures, the remains of which feature quite strongly in the in-fill material used to bury the enclosures at the site M In two of the pillars, cranes or ibis are depicted as a part of a wider scene However, a cursory glance at these particular birds will produce a sense of a mistake The legs of all birds, and this is particularly noticeable in large long legged birds, have legs that articulate forwards These birds have legs that articulate backwards This is particularly noticeable in the picture below Clearly, what we are not looking at is a depiction of a large bird; it is the representation of a man dressed as a bird It is inconceivable that the makers of these reliefs could have made such a fundamental error as familiar as they would have been with the creatures they depended on for life, so why this depiction? There could be a number of reasons Firstly, given the location of these particular pillars they could have a ritualistic or shamanistic context where in altered states of mind the shaman crosses over to a spirit world where revered animals and humans somehow merge; this is something that is depicted in cave and cliff paintings by primitive peoples that go back from the earliest of times to relatively recently Secondly, they could be depictions of cultural events such as dance at festivals Thirdly, they could be depictions of other central events such as the hunt Looking at the stone on the left, the bird is a part of a wider scene that includes a fox and, at the top, an auroch It is common amongst people who are familiar with hunting to use subterfuge to approach prey Human beings are not fast or strong; they have to use guile In the left stele a person, a hunter is approaching the auroch using a disguise A fox is in the picture maybe there as a totem of the hunter or a symbol of luck- or simply a companion in a spirit world part from straight forward depictions of familiar animals the stones at Gobekli Tepe are clearly rich in symbolism, including for example swarming A snakes with representations of spiders which were considered powerful totems and while the significance of spiders may be somewhat elusive, snakes play a prominent part in the folklore of this region to this day On the right is a depiction on the side of a stele of symbols representing the sun and the moon, both crucial indicators of the passage of time and the appropriate messengers of the months and seasons The pillar below contains an image of what appears to be a net full of snakes Snakes were considered to have powers of immortality because the shedding of skin was seen as a renewal of life This theme is extremely ancient and comes to life most powerfully in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Sumerian Deluge Epic in which a herb that gives immortality and which was given to the hero Gilgamesh by the Flood Survivor Utnapishtim is stolen and consumed by a serpent The theme of the serpent lives on in this region today in the tales of the Sahmaran a mystical creature living in caverns far beneath the earth The Site Layout The various stele and carved stones described above are grouped together in a number of enclosures that cover a relatively small area The images on them, as can be seen from the photographs are raised reliefs but some are actual freestanding sculptures The enclosures are grouped on the south facing slope of the hill with their entrances facing south Enclosure A, the first circular structure to be excavated, is referred to as “the snake column building” because depictions of the snake dominate the carvings on the T-pillars One is of a “net” containing snakes Another pillar, however, depicts a “triad” of bull, fox and crane, positioned one above the other Enclosure B measures nine metres in diameter when measured from east to west, and 10 to 15 metres north to south It is the only complex dug to floor level, revealing the terrazzo floor surface Two central pillars have a large fox depicted on them One central pillar, no 9, is 3.4 m high; pillar no 10 is 3.6 m high; their weight is 7.1 and 7.2 tonnes respectively The complex was clearly built to “house” these monolithic pillars, which prove how well-versed our ancestors were in working with large stones, not merely in quarrying them but in shaping, moving and decorating them Archaeologists believe that about 200 T-pillars originally stood at Göbekli Tepe the access stone This stone has a central passage of 70 centimetres in width, and one side of the U is topped with a depiction of a boar; the other side unfortunately is missing Again, the U shape and the boar underline the craftsmen’s technical expertise in carving, which is shown even more so on pillar no 27, featuring the earlier-mentioned three-dimensional reptilian creature Enclosure D is referred to as “the Stone Age zoo” Pillar no 43 has a very curious constellation of images that includes, on the left hand side, a vulture holding an orb or egg in an outstretched wing Equally curious is the possibility that this particular image is Enclosure C is referred to as ”the circle of the boar”, as it depicts various wild pigs This enclosure contains some of the finest reliefs discovered so far There remain nine pillars around the wall, but several were removed at some point in the past One pillar shows a net of birds As later cultures are known to have caught migratory birds in nets, could this be a custom that was practised much earlier than assumed? Complex C is also of interest because a U-shaped stone has been found there which is deemed to have been Pillar “43” from the “stone age zoo.” of a man dressed as a vulture since, like the crane images, the legs not articulate correctly for a bird Lower down the pillar there is a scorpion and the imagery is further complicated by the image of a headless ithyphallic man While all the animal images at Göbekli Tepe look to the enclosure centres one image of a bird on this stone (possibly a rock partridge or other prey bird) looks outwards to the edge- it is the only one to this Some pillars are indeed so profusely decorated—much more intensively than in the other complexes—that “zoo” is quite an apt description Once again, there are two central pillars (numbers 18 and 31), though other pillars reveal symbols, like one in the shape of the letter H as well as one with an H turned 90 degrees The site has revealed other symbols, specifically a cross, a resting half-moon and horizontal bars—possible evidence that the origin of writing is likely to be much older than is currently assumed Combined, these four complexes—and others, some under excavation—are a series of ovals and resemble the layout of the ovalshaped Stone Age complexes found on Malta This is all the more remarkable as Malta’s oval shapes were considered unique A “rock temple” lower down on the slope is equally oval in shape and has an opening to the “burial chamber” Whereas at other sites these openings are so narrow that a human could not navigate to the interior, here it is wide enough to enter Elsewhere on the site, on the northern slope of the hill, there is a rectangular complex named “the lion column building” Its four pillars have depictions of leonine creatures, which could also be tigers or leopards One flat stone has a 30-cm-high graffito of a squatting woman who appears to be in a birthing position or possibly prepared for ritual coitus This particular representation seems to be a later addition to the Lion Pillars enclosure as a bench plate and it is of a different style and quality to the other images This last image is, so far, unique at the site as all the images of humans and animals (where gender is identifiable) are male In addition, there were numerous statues displaying phalluses, either as ithyphallic images or as free standing phalluses on their own around the site and on one important pillar Ithyphallic man from Göbekli Tepe Gobekli Tepe Plan Excavations at Göbekli Tepe are an on-going process with many years of careful work and study ahead Only about a quarter of the suspected 200 T-pillars have been discovered so far, and not all the structures have been unearthed In short, further surprises are undoubtedly in store The site clearly demonstrates that things which we thought were much more recent are in fact far older, and all present in one site, located in a region which shows that a civilisation worthy of that name existed there in the 10th millennium BC, millennia before anyone would have dared to imagine just a few decades ago In an ancient and important site such as this much speculation has been produced regarding the place of Göbekli Tepe in the cosmic scheme of things with all sorts of possible linkages being made with other ancient sites that have supposed mystic, even magical properties Some people in archaeo-astronomy think that the site may have been linked with the stars in a way similar to that which has been tentatively suggested for the 7500 year old stone circle at Carahunge in Armenia Dr Schmidt says he wouldn’t exclude this but has not found any evidence to date and it is always possible that the site, like others, has a duality of purpose The site is clearly orientated, but the enclosures are orientated southwards and down the plain where the people might have come from and not in relation to the night sky or any apparent astronomical feature; looking at the topography of the area an orientation based on an approach or ceremonial path is most likely This would seem reasonable and certainly consistent with other ancient monuments around the world such as the orientation of Stonehenge in England with a sister Henge along a ceremonial pathway The same may be said about the monuments at Nazca in Peru Even within the Christian tradition we have an understanding of the ceremonial pathway- the maze at the centre of Chartres Cathedral in France “represents” one such pathway, a journey to Jerusalemand mythology around the idea of a labyrinth is very ancient The urge to “process” as a part of ritual is as old as humanity itself it would seem Each year since excavations began new stones and reliefs are uncovered which help us to both understand the meaning of the site and its people as well as posing even more questions And as there are still many questions to answer, the archaeological teams and their local excavators will be here for at least another 20 years As already mentioned, we know that the site was intentionally buried because of the nature of the in-fill material and this is a fact which has clearly contributed to the excellent state of preservation of the standing stones, their images and carvings Importantly, the act of burial of this important site was no mean feat and would have taken a considerable amount of work and organisation Where did these people get their technology from? There are a number of settlements being excavated in the region now and evidence shows that the people were hunter gatherers or at least pastoral and nomadic These people were inventing new cycle of life and new farming societies; previously they would hunt, gather their kills and move from area to area This was the slow start of a structured farming community The hypothesis is that Göbekli Tepe was a cultural and religious focal point for these people and a new and evolving way of life This was the first time and the first region in the world to make this giant leap, and we know this from evidence from sites around the globe It took a long time for other regions around the world to independently move from being hunter gatherers to being farming communities in what was a very gradual process, 6000 years ago in the New World and 7000 years ago in Asia We know from genetic studies that the very first cultivated grasses or grains come from this locality and looking around you today you will see the huge importance that agriculture and specifically wheat production, spurred on by the massive South East Anatolian (GAP) irrigation project, still has to the people of this land Göbekli Tepe is where it all began; in a sense, history has come full circle Certainly looking at the architecture of the enclosures at Göbekli Tepe they are reminiscent of the dwellings of the people of the region at this time and even of the dwellings and holy places of other peoples far removed in time and place Our ancient history has certainly become much more interesting and complex The cultures that subsequently followed Göbekli Tepe had domesticated pigs, sheep, cattle and goats and cultivated wheat species Other domesticated cereals such as rye and oats also originated here But another site, Karahan Tepe, 63 kilometres east of Urfa in the Tektek Mountains, deserves attention Discovered in 1997, it has been dated to about 9500–9000 BC, which puts it firmly in the same time frame as Göbekli Tepe It also has a number of T-pillars as well as high reliefs of a winding snake and other carvings similar to those at Göbekli Tepe Covering an area of 325,000 m2, Karahan Tepe is much bigger than Göbekli Tepe The stone pillars are spaced 1.5 to 2.0 metres apart and protrude above ground level, waiting for archaeologists to expose them fully Other carvings include a torso of a naked man and polished rock with stylised goats, gazelles and rabbits The “T” shaped pillars were also discovered but in conjunction with domestic arrangements at Nevalı Çori just a few kilometres away from Gobekli Tepe at a location which is now submerged by the lake which formed behind the Ataturk Dam It is the close interaction of the domestic with the ritual at Nevali Cori that makes the total absence of domestic structure or evidence of domestic activity so marked at Göbekli Tepe Indeed, in other later Neolithic sites such as Çatalhưk near Konya, the close interaction between the sacred and the domestic is a marked factor of the newly emerging urban and village life of close knit settled communities The process that led to communal settled life was a long drawn out one and was probably initially driven by improvements in climate that made the business of gathering food and hunting easier Nomadic peoples have always met at certain times in specific places to exchange information, celebrate life and death, perform religious rituals and arrange marriages and partnerships As conditions improved and food was easier to gather, hunt or produce one can envisage a process whereby the times spent at gatherings became longer and longer until eventually there was some community remaining at a meeting or sacred place almost continuously At Neolithic sites across the near and middle east this seems to be the pattern and the ritualistic nature of the gatherings continued in proximity to or even within the domestic spaces of the new communities Göbekli Tepe is unique, so far, in that there is no associated domestic environment nearby It is simply too early to draw any conclusions from these sites, except from the fact that our history has been pushed considerably further back For example, in the case of Jericho, which produced great excitement because of its Biblical connections archaeology produced a mixed, and in some instances, a disappointing picture Excavations at Jericho, early enthusiasm notwithstanding, did not produce mighty walls that had been destroyed by the trumpet blasts of Joshua What it did produce was a complex picture of its early inhabitants living a life in the PPN A period that featured bizarre and disturbing funereal practices where people lived with and amongst their dead; burials were associated with buildings and they were to be found below floors, under houses, between walls and within the large central tower discovered in Jericho After a period of time bodies were exhumed, skulls removed and then, with faces reconstructed from plaster, seem to have been kept as ritual objects What is interesting is that at Jericho, with one single exception of five skeletons, the bodies of infants and children remained undisturbed The practice of removing the skull as a ritual object would seem to indicate that unless a person survived to a certain age, life in the community both before and after death was not assured This practice, following on from the practice of abandoning old dwellings as burial sites, is repeated across the region at the time and would have obvious implications for some phases of Gobekli Tepe’s life Since the 1950s new discoveries, coupled with modern techniques and advancing science and technology have contributed to our knowledge of the period between 10,000–4000 BC This relates specifically to the level of “civilisation” our ancestors had achieved during this time frame and without question, across south eastern Turkey even older towns and holy places are waiting to be uncovered However, it is equally clear that entering into the mind-set of these hunter-gatherers and how they saw the animals they depicted on stone and what they believed happened to the dead is a difficult subject and for which there are no definite answers Göbekli Tepe will certainly produce many more surprises in the years to come but already, other sites both in Turkey and beyond are competing for Göbekli Tepe’s fame Although few can be quite as enigmatic it’s likely they will all reveal that they are part of our history and relevant to our understanding of our origin, but not as we know it Hill of the Navel EasternTurkeyTours Visit Gobekli Tepe with Eastern Turkey Tours For more information and booking please visit our website: www.easternturkeytour.org Eastern Turkey Tours is a product of Alkans Tour Agency, Van, Turkey ... of the Navel EasternTurkeyTours Visit Gobekli Tepe with Eastern Turkey Tours For more information and booking please visit our website: www.easternturkeytour.org Eastern Turkey Tours is a product... around the site and on one important pillar Ithyphallic man from Göbekli Tepe Gobekli Tepe Plan Excavations at Göbekli Tepe are an on-going process with many years of careful work and study ahead... Malta Scara Brae, Orkney Islands Scotland 3200BC Gobekli Tepe 10,000 BC 3500BC odern fox in typical mid leap as depicted on stele at Gobekli Tepe with its prey (a small rodent?) marked by an